reinhold niebuhr's christian realism/christian idealism
TRANSCRIPT
Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian Realism/ChristianIdealismCOLM MCKEOGFI
The wicked at heart probably know something.
WOODY ALLEN, Without Feathers
The foregoing quip captures a realization that came to the young Reinhold
Niebuhr in the 192os and that turned the liberal Christian pastor away
from pacifism and toward a more realist ethic of politics. From then until
his death in 1971, Niebuhr was to remain always a liberal Christian of real
ist bent. He was a liberal Christian in his concentration on the law oflove as
the only absolute and in his rejection of Christian fundamentalism, bibli
cal literalism, and the consequent clash with science. He was a political re
alist, and rose to national prominence as such in the 1930S and 1940s, in his
dismissal of pragmatic pacifism and his advocacy ofAmerican responsibil
ity to use force in opposing the Nazi and Soviet threats to the world. He was
famous particularly for his sharp attacks on those who failed to see the lim
its on morality in politics. Yet this realism was but one strand of Niebuhr's
dualist approach to politics, the other being his Christian idealism.
It was disillusionment following World War I that had turned Niebuhr
into a reluctant pacifist. Through the 192os, however, he worried about his
motives and whether his professed pacifism was linked to American self-
interest and a powerful nation's support of the status quo. He wondered
whether he would be as good a pacifist if he belonged to an unsatisfied
nation rather than to a satisfied one, and whether his pacifism was really
anything more than the "pacifism of the beast whose maw is crammed."
Much American pacifism of the time, he suggested, was "an ethical subli
mation of an essentially selfish national position," for "it is always the ten
dency of those who have to extol the virtues of peace and order."2
Niebuhr renounced his pacifism, and began to develop his political re
alism, not in the face of the deteriorating international situation in the late
191
192 COLM MCKIIOGH
1930s, but in response to the sufferings of the American working class dur
ing the Great Depression. It was the influence of Marxism on Niebuhr in
the late 1920S and early 1930S that led to his acceptance of the necessity of
using power and force in the cause ofjustice. Power, the Detroit-based pas
tor came to believe, is the core of politics. It is the first source of authority
in politics, domestic and international, and it is neither intrinsically evil
nor unambiguously good. It is rather the instrument ofboth good and evil:
"power cannot be evil of itself, unless life itself be regarded as evil. For life
is power. It is inherently dynamic. Even the purest `reason' is power. Ac
cording to the Christian faith, perfect power and goodness are united only
in God."3
Power is the necessary means to social change and to the achievement
of a more tolerable justice. Yet power comes in many forms and an imbal
ance in any of these results in injustice. The achievement of a more tolerable
degree ofjustice must come then through the balancing of power. The pri
mary check on the power of groups, classes, and nations will be the power
of other groups, classes, and nations. This need for a balance of power is
permanent because of the perennial possibility of some dominant power
and therefore the perennial threat of injustice. The necessity for a power-
based authority, means that full justice can never be attained. All societies
require an organization of power yet the center of power within any com
munity is always biased and never fully just. Acceptance of this must lead
to acceptance that, although political authority must try to be impartial, it
can never succeed.
Niebuhr's realist approach, developed in the context of the domestic
socioeconomic situation in the United States, was applied by him to inter
national relations in the 193os. The threat from Nazi Germany was one of
which Niebuhr, brought up in a German-speaking family in the Ameri
can Midwest, was acutely aware. In contact with German churches and
conscious of German anger over the Versailles Treaty, he was to warn, as
early as 1931, of the threat to peace from the "1-litler movement."1 In 1933,
with Hitler's accession to power, he appealed to the U.S. churches and gov
ernment to find ways of relief for German Jews.5 By 1934, he decided that
a "new war in Europe is only a matter of years."6 In the face of the Nazi
threat, Niebuhr criticized forcefully and influentially the dominant strain
of pacifism in the interwar United States. This was the pragmatic paci
fism of which Niebuhr himself had been an exponent and which remained
widespread among his fellow liberal Protestants. But in his critique ofpac
ifism, Niebuhr distinguished between two types of pacifism: the absolute
REINHOLD NIEEUHR'S CHRISTIAN REALISM/CHRISTIAN IDEALISM 193
pacifism of the Christian perfectionist and the pragmatic pacifism ofmany
liberals. It was only the latter that Niebuhr rejected. The former he ac
cepted and valued. Indeed, he never failed to pay tribute to the pacifism
that was witness to the Christian ideal of non-coercive love but that never
claimed to be a political strategy. In 1940, long after he had rejected his
own pacifism, he wrote that such pacifists were not fools to be tolerated but
witnesses to be heard: "We who allow ourselves to become engaged in war
need this testimony of the absolutist against us, lest we accept the warfare
of the world as normative, lest we become callous to the horror of war, and
lest we forget the ambiguity of our own actions and motives and the risk
we run of achieving no permanent good from this momentary anarchy in
which we are involved."7
Christian Idealism
Niebuhr's distinction between two types of pacifism, and his rejection of
only one of them, was of immense significance to the development of his
dualist approach. For the perfectionist strand of Niebuhr's approach shares
its roots with the apolitical Christian pacifism that withdraws from politi
cal life. Niebuhr's highest ideal is the disinterested, heedless, self-sacrificing
perfect love of Christ. Love is the only absolute norm for Niebuhr; it is the
ultimate referent by which all human actions are to be judged. Niebuhr
thus takes a very demanding view of the ethic of Jesus, both in seeing self-
sacrificial love as its core and in interpreting love as a pure and heedless
self-sacrifice. He sees the ethic of Jesus as an ethic of selfless giving that
condemns every form of self-assertion. He interprets that ethic in such a
perfectionist manner that to conform to it becomes the "impossible pos
sibility."1 No human action or motive can ever conform to it, though it re
mains the standard for the motives and actions of all individuals. Niebuhr
sees guilt even in the reluctant use of the minimum force to resist an evil
aggressor who is wreaking havoc. To Niebuhr, the selfless love of God and
of others implies that one ought never do harm to anyone.
Christian Realism
The Christian ideal is one strand of Niebuhr's ethic. The other is the Chris
tian recognition of the inevitable human failure to live up to it. At the heart
of realism is constraint: the realist claims to perceive disagreeable aspects
of reality, disagreeable because they present obstacles to the realization of
194 COLM MCICEOOH
our goals. The realist claims to take full account of the resistance of reality
to his or her ideals and claims, too, that the idealist does not. Central to
realism then is a certain degree of pessimism, the product of a recognition
that reality poses problems for the implementation of ideals. This pessi
mism need not be total; the obstacles that reality presents to our goals may
not be completely intractable. But realism is distinguished by its recogni
tion that the circumstances of choice will always be constraining to some
significant degree. The constraints on political choice mean that we must
sacrifice some of our ideals if we are to achieve any of our goals. The realist
accepts that not all of our goals can be achieved and that many are achiev
able only by means we would rather not use.
Niebuhr's Christian realism highlights the significant and ineradica
ble constraints on our freedom of action in politics and international rela
tions that are rooted in human nature. The highest Christian goal is love
and the most fundamental and powerful constraint on the achievement
of this goal arises from the fallen nature of human beings. The greatest
realist in the Christian tradition, Augustine, developed the view of hu
man nature that was to be the foundation of Niebuhr's approach to poli
tics. The concept of original sin, established at the heart of Christianity
by Augustine, asserts both the inevitability of sin and human responsibil
ity for it.9 Niebuhr's attentions were focused on this fundamental Chris
tian doctrine by the neo-orthodox theology of the Swiss theologian Karl
Barth though the American liberal criticized Barthian neo-orthodoxy as
a "new kind of fundamentalism" that lent itself to political conservatism.'0
It was Niebuhr's rediscovery of the doctrine of original sin that provided
the basis for his claim that pacifism as a political program reflects a per
fection that humans do not have. Even to claim that the ethics of nonresis
tance are possible for human beings is to tempt us to pretend that we are
God, not human.
Sin comes from our refusal to accept our inherent human limitations
and the perennial insecurity that is basic to our nature. Original sin re
suits not from our finitude and imperfection but from our anxiety about
our finitude and imperfection, which is made possible by our freedom and
which expresses itself in pride and pretension. The anxiety that Niebuhr
detects at the heart of the human condition results in a situation similar
to that described in international politics as a security dilemma in which
the attempt to lessen one's own insecurity only deepens that of one's fel
lows, with the paradoxical result that the instability and the risk of conflict
REINHOLD NIEBUHR'S CHRISTIAN REALLSM/CHRISTIAN IDEALISM 195
is heightened. To Niebuhr, the insecurity of human individuals is spiritual
as well as physical. The result is a more profound version of Hobbes's state
of nature and also a more pessimistic one. It is more profound in that the
insecurity in human life goes to the very root of our being, our position in
creation, being at once in the natural world and transcending it. It is more
pessimistic in that no full solution is possible. Insecurity is the human lot
because of the ambiguous human condition at the juncture of freedom
and necessity, both creatures and creators of our world. No sovereign can
eliminate it. Both Niebuhr and Hobbes highlight human anxiety and in
security; to Hobbes, the resultant seeking of power by all means at one's
disposal is a natural right; to Niebuhr, it is a sin. Of this human insecurity,
Niebuhr writes: "In short, man, being both free and bound, both limited
and limitless, is anxious. Anxiety is the inevitable concomitant of the par
adox of freedom and the finiteness in which man is involved. Anxiety is
the external precondition of sin. It is the inevitable spiritual state of man,
standing in the paradoxical situation of freedom and finiteness."1'
This condition of anxiety is the occasion for sin but not the cause of it;
rather it is our refusal to accept the insecurity that is fundamental to the
human condition which results in all human life being involved in the sin
of seeking security at the expense of other life. Like Pascal, Niebuhr sees
original sin as the mystery that makes human beings comprehensible to
themselves; it is the most accurate description and explanation of our na
ture as human beings2
This perception of human nature has implications for our social and
political life. We are incurably creative and so our history is dynamic,
moving, creative. We have freedom over both the past and the present, we
can break old forms, transform them, and establish new ones. This free
dom, combined with our rational capacities, our moral urges, and our im
pulse for survival and well-being, means that there are indeterminate pos
sibilities for higher levels of rational and moral insight, of technical and
social development, and of freedom and justice. But there are limits to the
new and morally better structures that may be formed. Though humans
have indeterminate possibilities, we can never alter our ontological struc
ture as both creature and self-transcendent. No final or permanent society
is conceivable in history, and no particular social order can be regarded as
permanent or stable. The spiritual creativity of humans, which is part of
our essential nature, transcends any form of social cohesion and thus any
society is subject to change, transformation, dissolution.
196 COLM MCKEOGH
A Dualist Approach
For Niebuhr, the fundamental feature of reality is its paradoxical and self-
contradictory nature. The approach to political reality that he adopts is a
dualist one. The principal dualism that characterizes Niebuhr's approach
to social and political ethics is one of Christian realism and Christian
idealism. Such an approach, he believed, would take account both of our
highest ideals and of the stark realities of politics. Only an approach to
politics that is both realistic and moral could yield an "adequate political
morality":
An adequate political morality must do justice to the insights of both
moralists and political realists. It will recognize that human society
will never escape social conflict, even though it extends the areas of so
cial cooperation. It will try to save society from being involved in end
less cycles of futile conflict, not by an effort to abolish coercion in the
life of collective man, but by reducing it to the minimum, by counseling
the use of such types of coercion as are most compatible with the moral
and rational factors in human society, and by distinguishing between
the purposes and ends for which coercion is used.'3
Niebuhr's aim is for an approach that neither abandons hope nor de
ludes itself that progress will be quick or easy or painless. Hans Morgen
thau wrote that, in general, Western civilization has devised two intellec
tual instruments to reconcile Christianity and politics: the first reinterprets
Christian ethics to make them fit the political facts, the second describes
political events as better than they are.'4 Niebuhr, however, rejects both the
dilution of Christianity and the misrepresentation of politics. He does not
compromise the commands of Christian ethics in any way; indeed, his in
terpretation of the ethic of Jesus is absolute and starkly uncompromising.
Nor does he downplay the immorality of the political act; again, Niebuhr is
uncompromising in his description of the inherent immorality of the po
litical act. He presents the conflict between politics and morality in a full
light. He shows the impossibility of reconciling them and yet this is what
he then attempts to do. Niebuhr thus rejects the contention that the con
flict between politics and Christian morals is irreconcilable, and that there
can be no such thing as a "Christian statesman." In contrast, he insists that
Christianity cannot reject politics.
The dualism of Niebuhr's approach has been described as a "tenuous
metaphysical proposition fraught with inconsistencies."5 Indeed, Niebuhr
REINHOLD NIEDUHR'S CHRISTIAN REALISM/CHRISTIAN IDEALISM 197
acknowledged that a realist theory of politics would not be a consistent
one; he wrote that he "abhor[red] consistency as a matter of principle be
cause history seems to prove that absolute certainty usually betrays into
some kind of absurdity."16 Consistent theories oversimplify reality. A sim
plified political theory will not solve the problems of international politics
but may foster dangerous beliefs in certainty and in perfect solutions. To
Niebuhr's eyes, political idealism tries to negate the fundamentally self-
contradictory nature of political reality. It simplifies political reality in its
attempt to maintain a clear and unambiguous sense of the world. In con
trast, political realism, confronted by a complex reality, accepts it as ir
reducibly complex and self-contradictory. Niebuhr's aim in his political
theory was to acknowledge fully the paradoxes, ironies, and tragedies of
reality. In approaching political reality we are forever confronting the dis
crepancy between our ideals and the prevailing situation, between our as
pirations and our attainments, between justice and power. Niebuhr's du
alism accepted this discrepancy as the cause and character of politics; it
worked toward an understanding of this discrepancy and endeavored to
set and attain limited goals within the framework of it. It recognized its
own limits and admitted that there were no permanent solutions to politi
cal problems. Prescriptively, it emphasized self-criticism and pragmatism.
Niebuhr adopted a dualist approach as the only one that could make
sense of the facts, tensions, and contradictions of human existence. It
might not have been intellectually defensible but it was pragmatically nec
essary. Niebuhr's dualism is not a straightforward one that requires Chris
tians to act by one set of rules in their personal life and by another in
their civic life. Instead, his approach takes two perspectives on all actions,
whether they are acts of state or of the individual, the two perspectives of
Christian realism and Christian perfectionism. The former has justice as
its highest norm; the latter love. All acts, whether of state or of the individ
ual, are to be criticized from both perspectives. An action that meets the
requirements of the Christian realist perspective will still be found want
ing from the perfectionist one.
There is thus an ineradicable tension between the requirements of the
two ethics. One takes account of the realities of fallen humans in a sinful
world; the other is transcendent and other-worldly. Niebuhr did not believe
it possible for humans to act always in accordance with the standards of
Christian perfectionism; he went so far in an interview as to claim boldly
that "only mothers, martyrs, mystics and monastics can perform acts of
self-sacrifice." 17 If there is little chance of the perfectionist ethic motivating
198 COLM MCKEOGH
the acts of individuals, then there is much less chance of it influencing the
acts of groups, for in groups, Niebuhr holds, human selfishness is magni
fied. In a realist vein, he stresses time and time again that there is almost
no possibility for moral action by groups. This he does to prevent our op
timism from deluding us about the moral potential of collective behavior.
Nations cannot adhere to the morality of individuals; love is an impossibil
ity in inter-group relations. The proof of this is that one cannot point to a
national policy that persists in going beyond national self-interest. A pure
self-sacrificing love is not a possibility for groups for no "nation, or any
other group for that matter, will ever sacrifice itself for another."t8 Nations
never commit suicide, nor should they. Neither the leaders nor the citizens
of a nation ought to conclude, from the law of love, that they should aban
don all their responsibilities and sacrifice all their interests.
To Niebuhr, neither Christian realism nor Christian idealism is ade
quate alone. Neither love nor justice is sufficient on its own. Love can never
take the place of justice, even under the best possible conditions. Love is
the only absolute but to try to live entirely by love and to discard the struc
tures of justice is to risk destroying love, for we need structures of justice
to protect people from love that can be biased and misdirected. Love with
out justice can be harmful even within the family or the church: justice is
always needed too as a guide to the ordering of any relations, Socially and
politically, love is not enough because individual goodness does not solve
any issue of social justice. To do this we need structures of justice and
rights. Therefore, in the process of building communities, every impulse
of love must be transformed into an impulse of justice. Justice must be the
first instrument of love.19
Yet justice alone is never enough, either. We cannot dismiss love from
social and international ethics because justice requires love in order to
overcome the inevitable bias of self-interest. Niebuhr writes that a justice
that is only justice is less than justice; what is needed is an "imaginative
justice, that is, love that begins by espousing the rights of the other rather
than the self" if a modicum of fairness is to be achieved.2° Justice, as the
calculation of rights and the discrimination between competing claims,
needs reason and yet that reason is corrupted by self-interest. Love can
overcome that bias and corruption. So love is not irrelevant to justice: it es
tablishes the viewpoint from which all norms and structures of justice are
to be judged, from which their ends may be recognized as proximate and
not ultimate, and their loyalties as parochial rather than universal.
REINHOLD NIEBUHE'S CHRISTIAN REALISM/CHRISTIAN IDEALISM 199
A Productive Tension
The product of Niebuhr's dualist approach is a constant tension between
its two elements. An action that seems to approach the requirements of the
realist ethic will fall far short of the demands of the perfectionist one. This
tension is fundamental and permanent: it cannot be resolved or lessened.
The idealism and the realism cannot be synthesized, reconciled, or harmo
nized. The permanent tension between ideals and realities is, to Niebuhr,
the essence ofhuman life on earth. This approach, which sets up two stan
dards by which all acts are to be judged, allows Niebuhr to meet his aim
of applying Christian morality to political reality without doing an injus
tice to either. He does not water down or corrupt the ethic of pure love in
order to make it applicable to the interactions of groups and nations. Nor
does he overstate the possibilities of moral action in politics. The tension
between the two ethics produces a constant self-criticism of all political
action and an awareness of its moral limitations. More important, the ten
sion urges the political actor to always go further and to be more creative
in seeking the coincidence of the national self-interest with the interests of
other nations.
The tension between Niebuhr's realism and his perfectionism has at
least four productive consequences for political action. First, the univer
salist and idealist perspective reduces the bias in our perception of po
litical and moral issues. There is always a danger that the realist ethic will
conceive the national interest too narrowly, but the universalist ethic helps
the political actor to realize that our destinies are intertwined and that a
narrow conception of the national interest will be self-defeating.
Second, the ethic based on love motivates the actor to find the point of
coincidence between the interests of the nation and the values that tran
scend those interests. Niebuhr's realism accepts that the national leader
ship cannot pursue policies that jeopardize the national interest but he
wishes them to recognize that, since all nations live under a common peril,
they must pursue policies that transcend, as they fulfill, the national inter
est. Niebuhr sees a common weakness among the adherents of realism in
that "they usually do not go far enough in meeting new problems and situ
ations. They are so conscious of the resistance in history to new ventures,
and are so impressed by the perennial problems of politics, which manifest
themselves on each new level of history, that they are inclined to discount
both the necessity and the possibility of new political achievements."2' The
200 COLM MCKEOGFI
higher ethic both motivates and assists the realist to view the national in
terest in a broader, more objective, and more long-term manner. Though
prudence alone may motivate the search for justice, religion adds both a
broader perspective, a stronger motivation, and greater staying power to
that unending quest: "justice... is on the whole an achievement of ratio
nal calculation. The will to do justice ultimately has a religious root and no
rational reason can be given why a man ought to be just, unless it be the
prudential one that injustice will finally destroy its beneficiaries as well as
its victims."22
A third productive consequence of the interaction between the two eth
ics is that idealism can stop realism from decaying into cynicism. Realism
is based on an acknowledgment that we must come to terms with the harsh
facts. of political reality; cynicism arises when these facts are accepted as
setting the standards for conduct. Niebuhr detected such cynicism in
many other realists of the time; for example, he agreed with George Ken-
nan's rejection of the "moralistic-legalistic" approach to international poli
tics and foreign policy but thought that "Kennan's solution for the problem
of our pretentious idealism is a return to the concept of `national inter
est.' He thinks that this concept should guide our foreign policy on the
grounds that we must not pretend to know more than what is good for us.
This modesty is important. But egotism is not the cure for an abstract and
pretentious idealism. Preoccupation with national interest can quickly de
generate into moral cynicism even if it is originally prompted by moral
modesty."23 The perfectionist ethic can stop the realist ethic from decaying
into cynicism, by judging all political realities and acts from a higher per
spective and showing how they all fall short of the ultimate norm. Niebuhr
believes too that a religious stance is required to give meaning to crisis and
to avert despair: "those who have not this key to the mystery of life and of
God are tempted. . . to be either complacent or hysterical when confronted
with the evils of history."24 Christianity does not guarantee that good will
triumph over evil in history, but it does assure one that evil will not tri
umph over God's designs.25
A fourth and final impact of the perfectionist ethic on the realist ethic
is to stop the latter from leading to moral pretension. States claim that they
cannot act beyond their own interests, yet when they go to war they can
claim to be fighting for universal values such as democracy, freedom, or
civilization. No action of the state, when viewed from the higher perspec
tive, can be seen as a moral act. The idealist perspective reveals the self
interest that underlies all political action, however virtuous it may seem.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR'S CHRISTIAN REALISM/CHRISTIAN IDEALISM 201
In these ways, Niebuhr's realist/idealist approach helps the actor to deal
with the paradoxical realities of politics. The realist ethic urges the politi
cal actor to be aware of power and self-interest and to seek the overlap of
interest and principle. However, this realist ethic remains under criticism
from the perfectionist ethic that has love as its ultimate value. By seeking
justice through a broad conception of the national interest, the political
leader may satisfy the realist ethic but never the perfectionist one. Prom
the higher perspective of Christianity, one could always do better. The
higher ethic provides the constant self-criticism of motives and question
ing of means. It ensures we never claim moral purity for any political act
and that we remain always self-critical.
The Tragedy of Politics
Niebuhr's dualist approach yields a sense of the inevitable tragedy of poli
tics. Often in politics, one must do wrong either way. Guilt is unavoidable.
The most we can realistically aim for is justice, and the achievement of any
degree of justice requires the use of power. Justice, whether within society
or between nations, must be based on a balance of power. This balance of
power implies a conflict of wills, a contest of interests in which gross in
justice is avoided only because the contending forces are evenly matched.
Injustices must usually be corrected through the vehement resentments
of their victims. This is even more so in international relations where the
cause of justice is even more precarious: unscrupulous nations are pun
ished only if sufficient power is aligned alongside moral condemnation.
Justice relies on power and yet power corrupts justice.
This moral ambiguity of politics implies the inevitable guilt of all in
volved in politics. The paradox of political and social action is that moral
responsibility requires us to take sides and to use power, which is sinful.
Justice means the calculation of rights and often the taking of sides for
the weak and against the strong. The result is that it "is not possible to en
gage in any act of collective opposition to collective evil without involv
ing the innocent with the guilty." Yet we must engage in political action
and in the use of power against others for we "cannot be good unless we're
responsible, and the minute we're responsible, we're involved in compro
mise."27 That we must be responsible for our common guilt does not annul
our responsibility to strive for relative justice.
Central to the tragedy of politics is the inability to act in history without
sin. For there will always be selfishly used power and therefore a responsi
202 COLM MCKEOGR
bilityto use countervailing power. The use of that countervailing power is,
from the perspective of a total love of others, sinful. Niebuhr's perfection
ist interpretation of the ethic of Jesus implies that all use of power in the
name of justice falls short of the ideal of love and is therefore sinful. It re
mains our moral responsibility to counter the power of others yet this im
plies if we do so effectively that we will inflict harm on them. From the
perspective of love, to inflict harm on others is to sin.
The result of this is Niebuhr's tragic view of human history. A clear
conscience is unattainable, through political involvement or through po
litical noninvolvement. Often we will find ourselves in a position where
both action and inaction will lead to harm being done to others. Those
who wield political power are unavoidably culpable, yet Niebuhr criticizes
equally those who have sought to keep their hands clean by staying out of
the morally ambiguous arena of politics. Any attempt to avoid the guilt of
political involvement is itself immoral: "we cannot purge ourselves of the
sin and guilt in which we are involved by the moral ambiguities of poli
tics without also disavowing responsibility for the creative possibilities of
justice."28
Poilticat Action
It is not possible to move in history without becoming tainted with guilt.
How then is one to act in politics and international relations? How does
the productive tension between irreconcilable realism and perfectionism
work in practice? Niebuhr refused to criticize national leaders for defend
ing national interests; political leaders are responsible to national and lo
cal constituencies arid must give voice to national and local interests. To
the end of his days he was skeptical of utopian thinkers who presented the
possibilities of transcending the national interest as greater than they ac
tually were. He repeated frequently that nations could never go beyond the
area of congruence between their national self-interest and a concern for
the needs of other peoples or of the world community as a whole. But he
was critical, not only of moralists who preached the transcending of the
national interest, but also of national leaders who viewed the national in
terest too narrowly, with insufficient and with short-term horizons.
Niebuhr accepted the pursuit of self-interest as an ineradicable feature
of human beings and their groups. He recognized that nations do support
universal values and principles but only when they accord with their per
ceived self-interest: "Every nation is guided by self-interest and does not
REINHOLD NIEBUHR'S CHRISTIAN REALISM/CHRISTIAN IDEALISM 203
support values which transcend its life, if the defense of these values mi-perils its existence. A statesman who sought to follow such a course would
be accused of treason. On the other hand nations do become the bearers of
values which transcend their national interests."29
Nations must act on the basis of self-interest, but that self-interest can
coincide with the global interest. No nation is good enough to do what is
right unless its sense of duty is compounded with its sense of survival.30
Niebuhr's repeated assertions that the national interest is, and must be, at
the heart of national policy would seem to leave little scope for morality
in foreign policy. But his conception of the national interest is a distinc
tive one. He writes: "Nations are, on the whole, not generous. A wise self-
interest is usually the limit of their moral achievements; though it is worth
noting that nations do not achieve a wise self-interest if generous impulses
do not help to drive them beyond the limits of a too-narrow self-interest."31
Niebuhr cites a "wise self-interest" as often the limit of a nation's moral
achievement; crucially, though, the true self-interest of a nation is more
than just a narrow exclusive national interest. All nations share an interest
in peace and order; the wise see this. Thus, he claims, it is not in any na
tion's self-interest to be selfish,
Underlying all his recommendations to national leaders and policy
makers is the beliefthat the real interest ofnations is not a narrow, exclusive
one, and that the national interest, when conceived only from the stand
point of the self-interest of the nation, is bound to be defined "too narrowly
and therefore to be self-defeating."32 A too narrowly defined national inter
est is one that fails to consider those national interests that are bound up in
a web ofmutual interests with other nations. Thus, to Niebuhr, a consistent
emphasis on self-interest is as counterproductive in national life as in indi
vidual life: "a consistent self-interest on the part ofa nation will work against
its interests because it will fail to do justice to the broader and longer-term
interests which are involved with the interests of other nations."33
Niebuhr insists that international politics is not a zero-sum game and
that national interests are not mutually exclusive. Underlying this claim
was not just his faith in a benevolent creator, The existence of nuclear
weapons made it clear that peace was in the interests of all nations; jus
tice too was a common national interest, as there could be no stable peace
without justice. Niebuhr's advice to all national policy makers was this:
always seek the overlap of national and global interests, and never accept
that conflicts of real interests and therefore war are inevitable. He urged
on them a "wise self-interest informed by loyalty to principles transcend-
204 CaLM MCKEOGH
ing national interests" and stressed that the art of statecraft is to find the
point of concurrence between the "parochial and the general interest, be
tween the national and the international common good."34 This is not just
the art of statecraft, it is the moral duty of all involved in national policy.
Political realism alone is not enough to achieve this, for prudence alone
will often define the national interest too narrowly. It will approach com
mon problems from the perspective of a particular interest and will fail
to seek the longer-term solution, What are also needed, says Niebuhr, are
moral and religious perspectives in order to widen our conception of inter
est and also to motivate us to seek the coincidence of national and global
interests. Both reason and the religious spirit are required to inspire a
broader interpretation of the nation's interests. To Niebuhr, the pursuit
of the national interest will never in itself lead to a recognition of the co
incidence of interests. One must be inspired by the religious ideals of love
and justice to search for and to recognize the coincidence of interests. One
must aim for something more than justice if one is to achieve justice.
A national leader who got the balance right, in the domestic political
circumstances of his time, was Abraham Lincoln, Niebuhr's hero from an
early age the German pastor's son grew up in an Illinois town named af
ter the president, the Niebuhr house being less than a mile from the court
where Lincoln had argued cases as a circuit lawyer. Lincoln was the model
ofan able politician whose religious humility allowed him to fight for what
he believed to be right without feeling the need to portray the other side as
wholly wrong. He combined a political shrewdness without the cynicism
Niehuhr detected iii Roosevelt's 1936 campaign with a religious perspec
tive without the moralizing that turned Niebuhr against Wilson. That re
ligious perspective made him aware that God's purposes were partly con
tradicted by the moral issues of the vast historical drama in which Lincoln
was playing his part, and yet were not irrelevant to it. It brought to light the
element of pretension in the idealism of both sides and allowed Lincoln to
remain modest about the virtue and wisdom of his own side. It gave to the
president's stance of "malice towards none and charity for all" a firm basis
in contrition about the human frailties and vanities that were common to
both sides to the conflict. "The prophets of righteousness who would make
no compromises could not have achieved their ideals but for the states
men who did make compromises," a young Niebuhr wrote in 1918. "Abra
ham Lincoln was just as necessary to the abolition movement as William
Lloyd Garrison. Christian statesmen are essential to the kingdom of God
as Christian prophets."35
REINHOLD NIEBUHR'S CHRISlIAN REALISM/CHRISTIAN IDEALISM 205
As an example of a too narrow national interest in international rela
tions, Niebuhr cites the post-1918 fixation of the United States on German
debt repayment and reparation: self-interest, conceived in inadequate and
short-term ways, deflected the true interests of the world and of the United
States itself. A generous policy of debt liquidation would have helped the
Weimar leadership to rebuild the German economy, to establish democ
racy, and to reenter the community of nations.36 The Marshall Plan, on the
other hand, is an example of the wise self-interest that Niebuhr sought.
The reconstruction of Germany was in the long-term self-interest of the
United States as well as in the broader world interest, yet it took a great deal
of generosity for that to be seen. Bitterness, narrow nationalism, and a de
sire for vengeance could all too easily have stood in its way: "Our aid need
not, however, be prompted purely by either humanitarian concern for the
starving or by concern for the preservation of political liberty in Europe,
though it is to be hoped that these motives will be operative. We must fur
nish aid also in the interest of our own economic health. . . It is highly sig
nificant that motives of self-interest thus come to the support of a policy
which generosity alone might well prompt. It is good that this is so, since
even the best nations are incapable of pure generosity."37
Yet, though the plan stands as a prime example of a Niebuhrian politi
cal act, it should not be seen as primarily a moral act. One should not claim
too much moral quality for what is still a political action. Niebuhr wrote at
the time: "As is always the case in international relations, what is called for
is not an act 9f benevolence but of wise self-interest."38 The plan was a case
of enlightened self-interest united with a concern for the general welfare;
as such it stands as an example of the most attainable virtue of nations.
American entry into World War II provides another example of na
tional self-interest coinciding with the greater world interest. In 1941, when
some voices were calling for the president to be more circumspect in his
neutrality, Niebuhr was calling for the repeal of the Neutrality Act and for
material assistance to Britain and her allies.39 But he was not, at this stage,
seeking direct American participation in the war against Germany. 1-le
made it clear that such action was indeed demanded if the United States
was to be truly responsible but, ever the realist, he acknowledged that the
interests of the United States had not yet been imperiled in a sufficiently
obvious manner for the administration to be able to unite the nation in a
declaration of war. Fron-i the moral perspective, the United States should
have entered the war against Germany; it was in the self-interest of the
United States to enter the war if that interest was interpreted in an enlight
206 COLM MCKEOGH
ened and far-seeing manner. But, practically, American involvement had
to wait upon a clearer perception of that interest and responsibility. The at
tack upon Pearl Harbor in December 1941 united the nation in the war ef
fort and in the fulfillment of its responsibilities. This example throws light
on the relationship that Niebuhr sees between a nation's self-interest and
a nation's ethical responsibilities: a nation is loyal to ideals that transcend
its life, but it can act in loyalty to these ideals only if its vital interests are
not prejudiced; it can do so more easily when the ideals and the interests
coincide.40
In a 1941 article, Niebuhr defines immoral behavior on the part of a
nation in the following terms: "The essence of immorality is the denial or
evasion of moral responsibility. An irresponsible nation is an immoral na
tion, while a nation that is becoming dimly aware of its responsibilities and
acts accordingly is moving towards Niebuhr defines morality
as the recognition of the interdependence of life. This applies to persons
as to nations, as both live in a web of relations with their fellows. A nation
best fulfills its obligations by pursuing policies that recognize that its wel
fare is bound up with that of other nations. In that 1941 article, in which he
was urging the repeal of the Neutrality Act, Niebuhr was arguing against
isolationists, neutralists, and pacifists, and he wrote: "Do-nothingness for
the sake of peace is not moral. It is pure escapism in a world where na
tions can escape no longer from the ethical consequences of their inter
dependence."42 This last sentence contains a key phrase that illuminates
Niebuhr's view of politics and morality: the ethical consequences of their
interdependence. The economic, technical, and commercial developments
of the twentieth century had ethical implications. Because of growing in
terdependence between nations, the world is closer to a community of na
tions; consequently, nations now have new and expanded moral responsi
bilities to each other. To deny those responsibilities is immoral as well as
counterproductive. Because of greater interdependence, an old-style nar
rowly defined national interest in terms of power and interest is no longer
any nation's true self-interest.
Conclusion
Niebuhr was very much a man of his time, who rose to prominence with a
message that resonated throughout his country at that juncture in its his
tory. Yet his approach has relevance today as his warnings about human
nature, politics, and the scope for moral action in our collective life still
REINHOLD NIEBUHR'S CHRISTIAN REALISM/CHRISTIAN IDEALISM 207
hold. A truly realistic approach is one that takes account of the highest
yearnings of human beings as well as their selfishness and recalcitrance.
We must acknowledge both how far short of the ideal the current inter
national economic and political order is and how great the obstacles to
progress are. The tension between ideals and realities is the perennial stuff
of politics, but the relationship between realism and idealism cannot be
precisely fixed. With changing times, a new balance of realism and ideal
ism is required in our outlook and in our actions. Niebuhr's own siding
with capitalism and bourgeois democracy in the 1930S was pragmatic: he
still considered them to be selfish and less than the highest at which hu
mankind should aim. It was in the face of a threat to capitalist civilization
from an even worse system that he swung his support behind the old or
der. To Niebuhr, for whom the idealism of the Christian gospel is required
to save us from cynicism and complacency and the realism of the Chris
tian faith to save us from sentimentality, it was clear where the danger lay
in his own time. "In America at least," Niebuhr wrote in 1942, "the dan
gers of a perverse sentimentality have been greater than the perils of cyni
cism."43 Times have changed and the reverse may now be the case. Indeed,
the imbalance of power in the world today can only lead to injustice. Yet
with vision, political leaders may see how the interests of their own people
are best served, in the long run, by the creation of a more just international
economic and social order. As ever, the attempt to secure only the national
interest will fail. Only the attempt to go beyond the national interest to
ward justice will effectively secure the national interest. These failings of
foreign policy are never just failures ofreason. Human reaon fails because
it is always biased, partial, and self-interested. It is inevitably biased, not
simply because of stupidity, but because of sin: "There is something more
than mere ignorance in this stupidity," Niebuhr commented in the 1940s.
"The stupidity of sin is in this darkness."44 The sin is the original sin of all
human individuals and groups: their pride and self-righteousness and ar
rogance and narrow egotism. Human egotism cannot be wished away and
perfect peace and justice will never prevail in human politics. Yet with
wisdom and courage, real opportunities can be recognized and signifi
cant steps taken to enhance the well-being of nations and the peace of the
world. As Niebuhr forecast during World War II:
The new international community will be constructed neither by the
pessimists, who believe it impossible to go beyond the balance of power
principle in the relation of nations to each other; nor by the cynics, who
208 COLM MCKEOGH
would organize the world by the imposition of imperial authority with
out regard to the injustices which inevitably flow from arbitrary and ir
responsible power; nor yet by the idealists, who are under the fond il
lusion that a new level of historic development will emancipate history
from these vexing problems. The new world must be built by resolute
men who "when hope is dead will hope by faith"; who will neither sek
premature escape from the guilt of history, nor yet call the evil, which
taints all their achievements, good.45
Niebuhr's famous and realist prayer of 1943, which asks God for the
grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to
change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other, applies to our political endeavors as to any others.16
To a political realist, it remains the nature of this world, as Woody Allen
reminds us, that the lion may lie down with the lamb but the lamb won't
get much sleep.
NOTES
Epigraph: Woody Allen, Without Feathers New York: Random House, 1972, p. 25.
i. Niebuhr, "Why I Am Not a Christian," The Christian Century 44 December s, 1927:
1483.
2. Niebuhr, "A Critique of Pacifism," The Atlantic Monthly 139 May 1927: 641, 640.
. Niebuhr, "Power and fustice," Ghristicsnily and Society 8 Winter 1942: 10.
. Niebuhr, "Let the Liberal Churches Stop Fooling Themselves," The Christian Century 48
March 25, 1931: 402.
5. Niehuhr, "Germany Must Be Told!" The Christian Century 50 August 9, 1933: 1014-15.
6. Niebuhr, Reflections on the End of an Era New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1934,
p. 247.
. Niebuhr, Christianity and Power Politics New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1940, p. 3'.
8. Niebuhr, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics London: Student Christian Movement
Press, 1936, p. 68. Niebuhr's famous description of love as such is rejected by John Howard
Yoder. The ideal of love has been lived up to in history by Jesus, writes the Mennonite pacifist,
and Christians as a community should bear witness to this. Love, and love alone, therefore,
should motivate Christians; John H. Yoder, The Original Revolution: Essays on Christian Paci
fism Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1971, pp. 47, 52-84, 115.
9. Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny ofMan, vol. 1 London: Nisbet, 1941, p. 256.
so. Richard W. Fox, Reinhold Niebuhr: A Biography New York: Pantheon, 1985, p. 117.
ii. Niebuhr, Nature and Destiny ofMan, vol. i, p. 182.
12. Niebuhr, Faith and History: A Comparison of Christian and Modern Views of History
London: Nisbet, 1938, p. 114.
13. Niebuhr, Moral Man and Jmmoral Society New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932,
p. 234.
14. 1-1. R. Landon, ed., Reinhold Niebuhr: A Prophetic Voice in Our Time Greenwich, Conn.:
Seabury Press, 1962, p. 102.
REINHOLD NIEIIUHR'S CHRISTIAN REALISM/CHRISTIAN IDEALISM 209
15. Daniel F. Rice, Reinhold Niebuhr and John Dewey: An American Odyssey Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1993, P. 6.
16. Niebuhr, "Pacifism and the Use of Force," The World Tomorrow 15 May 1928: 218.
17. Niebuhr and Hans Morgenthau, "The Ethics of War and Peace in the Nuclear Age," War!
Peace Report 7 February 1967: 3.
i8. Niebuhr, The Contribution of Religion to Social Work New York: Columbia University
Press, 1932, P. 92.
19. Niebuhr's claim that the Christian norm of love requires responsibility for tile social or
der is rejected by Yoder indeed, claims Yoder, in Niebuhr's approach social responsibility re
places love as the primary duty of the Christian. Niebuhr, Yoder asserts, lacks an adequate es
chatology when he sees the Christian's duty in trying to control history and helping it to turn
out right. Ultimately, Yoder is accusing Niebuhr of lacking an adequate faith in God, not a faith
that God would make things turn out right in human history in human terms, but a faith that,
even though may not turn out right in human history, there is still a reason for it. See John H.
Yoder, "Reinhold Niebuhr and Christian Pacifism," Mennonite Quarterly Review 29 April 1955:
10 1-17.
20. Niebuhr, "The Ethic of Jesus and the Social Problem," Religion in Lfe i Spring 5932:
200.
z, Niebuhr, "Plans for World Reorganization," Christianity and Crisis 2 October 19,1942: 4.
22. Niebuhr, "The Christian Perspective on the World Crisis," Christianity and Crisis 4
Mays, 1944: 3.
23. A comment on Kennan's American Diplomacy l900-s9so in Editorial Notes, Christianity
and Crisis ii October 29, 1951: 139.
24. Edmund Fuller, ed., The Christian Idea ofEducation New Haven: Yale University Press,
1957, p. 24; see also Niebuhr, "The Christian Perspective on the World Crisis," Christianity and
Crisis 4 May, i, 1944: 2-5.
25. Fuller, ed., The Christian Idea ofEducation, p. 241.
26. Niebuhr, "The Bombing of Germany," Christianity and Society 8 Summer 1943: 3.
27. Niebuhr to his classes at Union Seminary, New York, recorded in June C. Bingham,
Courage to Change: An Introduction to the Life and Thought of Reinhold Niebuhr New York:
Charles Scribners, 1961, p. 149.
28. Niebuhr, The Nature arid Destiny ofMan, vol. 2 London: Nisbet, 1943, p. 294.
29. Niebuhr, "The Good People of Britain," Radical Religion 4 Summer 1939: 7.
o. Niebuhr, "Our Responsibilities in 1942," Christianity and Crisis i January 12, 1942: 1.
31. Niebuhr, "Streaks of Dawn in the Night," Christianity and Crisis 9 December 12, 1942:
162.
32. Niebuhr, The World Crisis and American Responsibility: Analyses by Reinhold Niebuhr,
ed. Ernest W. Lefever New York: Association Press, 1958, p. 40.
Niebuhr, Christian Realism and Political Problems London: Faber and Faber, 1954,
p. 130.
34. Reported by Kenneth W. Thompson, "Towards Theory of International Politics," Ameri
can Political Science Review 49 September 1955: 741.
5. Niebuhr, Young Reinhold Niebuhr: His Early Writings 1911-1931, ed. William G. Chrystal
New York: Pilgrim Press, 1977, p.98; see also Niebuhr, The Irony ofAmerican History London:
Nisbet, 1952, Pp. 147-49.
36. Paul Merkeley, Reinhold Niebuhr: A Political Account London: McGill-Queens Univer
sity Press, 1975, p. uS.
Niebuhr, "The Marshall Plan," Christianity and Crisis 7 October 13, 1947: 2.
210 COLM MCKEOGH
38. Niebubr, "American Wealth and the World's Poverty," Christianity and Society 12 Au
tUmn 1947: 3.
Niebuhr, "Repeal the Neutrality Actl" ChrIstianity and Crisis i October 20, 1941: 1-2.
o. Niebuhr, Europe's Catastrophe and Christian Faith London: Nisbet, 1930, p. 40.
45. Niebuhr, "Repeal the Neutrality Act!" p. a.
42. Ibid.
43. Niebuhr, "The Churches and the War," Town Meetings of the Air August 27, 1942.
44. Niebuhr, Discerning the Signs of the Times: Sermonsfor Today and Tomorrow London:
Student Christian Movement Press, 5946, Pp. 51, 48.
5. Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny ofMan, vol. 2, pp. 295-96.
46. Niebuhr, Justice and Mercy New York: Harper and Row, 1974, p. v; so popular did
Niebuhr's prayer become that, Fox reports, it was credited variously in the post-1945 years to
Marcus Aurelius, Francis of Assisi, and Friedrich Octinger; see Fox, Reinhold Niebuhr, p. 290.
lhe grace of God can change only some things, Niebuhr here suggests.
SUGGESTED READINGS
Bingham, June C. Courage to Change: An Introduction to the Life and Thought ofRein
hold Niebuhn New York: Charles Scribners, 1965.
Fox, Richard W. Reinhold Niebuhr: A Biography. New York: Pantheon, 1985.
Merkeley, Paul. Reinhold Niebuhr: A Political Account. London: McGill-Queens Uni
versity Press, 1975.
McKeogh, Coin,. The Political Realism ofReinhold Niebuhr. Basingstoke: Macmillan,
1997.
Niebuhr, Reinhold. Christianity and Power Politics. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1940.
Christian Realism and Political Problems. London: Faber and Faber, 1954.
"A Critique of Pacifism." The Atlantic Monthly 119 May 1927: 637-41.
"The Ethic of Jesus and the Social Problem." Religion in Lfe 1 Spring 1932:
198-208.
-. Faith and History: A Comparison of Christian and Modern Views of History.
London: Nisbet, 1938.
"Germany Must Be Told!" The Christian Century 50 August 9, 1933: 1014-15.
An Interpretation of Christian Ethics. London: Student Christian Movement
Press, 1936.
Justice and Mercy. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.
"Let the Liberal Churches Stop Fooling Themselves." The Christian Century 48
March 25, 1931: 402-4.
"The Marshall Plan." Christianity and Crisis 7 October 13, 1947: 2.
Moral Man and Immoral Society. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932.
The Nature and Destiny ofMan. 2 vols. London: Nisbet, i9i and 1943.
"Power and Justice." Christianity and Society 8 Winter 1942: 9-10.
Reflections on the End ofan Era. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1934.
"Streaks of Dawn in the Night." Christianity and Crisis December 12, 1942:
162-64.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR'S CHRISTIAN REALISM/CHRISTIAN IDEALISM 211
Young Reinhold Niebuhr: His Early Writings 1911-1931. Edited by William 0.
Chrystal. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1977.
"Why I Am Not a Christian." The Christian Century 44 December 15, 1927:
1482-83.
Yoder John H. The Original Revolution: Essays on Christian Pacifism. Scottdale, Pa.:
Herald Press, 1971.
"Reinhold Niebuhr and Christian Pacifism." Mennonite Quarterly Review 29
April 1955: 101-17.